Tag Archives: CEO) Shop Talk

10/4/21

CEO Shoptalk — CEO Self Help, Self Appraisal

I am a huge fan of routine, standard operating procedures, process development/management, and ritual.

I am also a big fan of regular, rigorous Performance Appraisal and, in particular, Boards of Directors appraising the performance of their CEOs, and CEOs demanding an in-depth appraisal by the Board (subset of the Board is fine, try to get someone who has CEO experience on the committee).

Lazy, cowardly Boards of Directors ignore this critical professional development duty. Shame on you.

Pro tip: The methodology, timing, process of CEO Performance Appraisal belongs in any  competent Employment Agreement and professional boards/CEOs have Employment Agreements.

I am not a fan of trendy things like 360 Degree Performance Appraisals — I like bare knuckled, in your face, straightforward performance appraisal.

One of the things I practiced in 33 years of CEO-ing public and private companies, and I preach to CEOs is self appraisal. Nobody judges us as tough as we do ourselves. Think about that for a second.

CEO readying herself for performance self-appraisal.

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04/26/21

CEO Shoptalk — Initiative

When a startup reaches year three it is no longer crawling in the crawl, walk, run continuum. It has survived the danger zone (imagine Top Gun soundtrack of Danger Zone) in which most companies fail.

“Highway to the Danger Zone, CEOs. Listen up,” says Maverick.

If it is typical, it has a well developed product or service — well beyond Minimum Viable Product — and if it is in the commerce space it may have sales of as much as $10,000,000. It is likely profitable and if the growth rate continues, it will be very profitable.

With success comes a new set of problems and many times they are related to staff. Has the staff grown at the same rate as the company? Can the staff you hired when the company was a seed run this larger and more complex enterprise? It happens all the time.

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05/7/20

CEO Shoptalk — Scaling Yourself, Delegation

This is a re-titled former blog post that is particularly timely today. The way a CEO scales him/herself is to learn how to effectively delegate.

In these re-opening, re-launching COVID19 days, CEOs will be up to their eyeballs in work, so being able to delegate is an important work balancing tactic. Here is exactly how you do it.

Delegation. Today we talk about delegation. Think of delegation as the means by which a CEO scales him/herself.

The ability of a CEO to delegate tasks effectively is a force multiplier and one of the most important skills a CEO can develop. It is a mechanical skill and today the Big Red Car is going to help you learn how to do it. It’s like being able to fly fish. A bit of local knowledge plus a ten-to-two cast and you are eating smoked trout whenever you want. Listen.

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